


Love Of My Life

by SyntacticSugar



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntacticSugar/pseuds/SyntacticSugar
Summary: Aziraphale gasped - breath leaving him as his heart stopped - his corporal form forgot completely it was supposed to be keeping up appearances.The Dead Sea Scrolls remained in his hands. Stumbling upon a name, he read and re-read and then he felt a burning in his soul and knew.“I know your name - I know it - and oh my world itself - my name is not Aziraphale.”Crowley stiffens and looked at the angel shaking. Names are powerful things. That he didn’t know his own name - it was unthinkable.“What is your name?” Crowley said, voice low. He did not want to know but was compelled. It felt as if they were rushing to a completion neither of them had any control of.





	Love Of My Life

Aziraphale gasped - breath leaving him as his heart stopped - his corporal form forgot completely it was supposed to be keeping up appearances.

The Dead Sea Scrolls remained in his hands. Stumbling upon a name, he read and re-read and then he felt a burning in his soul and knew.

“I know your name - I know it - and oh my world itself - my name is not Aziraphale.”

Crowley stiffens and looked at the angel shaking. Names are powerful things. That he didn’t know his own name - it was unthinkable.

“What is your name?” Crowley said, voice low. He did not want to know but was compelled. It felt as if they were rushing to a completion neither of them had any control of.

“‘Aziraphale’ always sounded right. Sounded true. But it always sounded ‘new’. I mean, you know, or maybe you don’t. It was fuzzy. Everything before, well after. I mean - I only remember as far back as Eden...” Aziraphale drifted off, looking into the distance.

Crowley didn’t know.

It was part of his punishment, being a demon, remembering Heaven and everything ‘before’.

“I collected all these religious texts - more as a pastime then for knowledge. I mean... I was there for a lot of it.” Aziraphale was buying time.

Crowley tutted.

Aziraphale was still shaking when he looked at Crowley at the sound, before lifting skyward and then closing his eyes with a deep breath.

“Azi.” A small smile reaches Aziraphale’s lips. “Azi was a short name, an... endearment...”

When Azirapahle opened his eyes he looked again at Crowley, he was baring his ethereal soul. Crowley’s left hand hand itched for his sunglasses on the side table, but it was only just - that his beloved saw him just as open.

Aziraphale continued. “I had forgotten... but it was only fitting. My new name - being ‘Azi’s Raphael’ - Aziraphael.”

“You - you - Raphael?” Crowley gulped out. 

At the name - Aziraphale’s wings materialized from the ether, clothes changing to that of long white robes, hair softening to immaculate curls, looking like his angel of Eden.

Aziraphale smiles softly in turn, “And you are Azazel.”

At the naming, his soul burned. His wings summoned themselves, unfurling, and his black dress of robes tumbled from his shoulders at the same time his trusses of hair grew and overflowed unto his shoulders.

They were no longer in there cottage in South Downs. It wasn’t clear where they were. It struck both of them that it didn’t matter. They could only see each other.

“You always looked like that... Even back then - in Heaven.” Aziraphale gazed at him, soaking his image, as if he was seeing him for the first time.

Crowley in turn, looked at his angel, the burning continued but the memories failed to return.

His name had been stripped from him - forcefully - long ago. Lucifer gave him ‘Crawley’ - which he later turned into his own naming.

Heaven. He remembered Heaven but never Aziraphale in Heaven. They must have been created around the same time - if they were both placed in Eden. He huffed, brow furrowing. “I don’t... I’m trying.”

“You said before, in passing, but I... I remember now - seeing you - and your work. You made stars, galaxies... absolutely wondrous things. It only made sense to color you with the darkness of it all, space and beyond, for your eyes to be different than ours, so you could see in the dark to create and bring light and color to the universe.” Aziraphale looked possessed. As if being washed, undulated, by the tides of time.

“I remember you didn’t understand why you were different than us - us Archangels. That was your first, of many, questions. But you - you were a Seraphim. You burned with power and passion and I... I always gazed upon you captivated.” Aziraphale still entranced. Eyes glazed.

Crowley could see, sinking into his mind, the memory of a hand in his own. 

A soft hand with gold band on its little finger. Long. Long. Long ago.

“I somehow gained your attention and we spent eternity together. I was smitten, happy to wait for the arrival of the humans. You were, after the stars, restless. You would always return to me, but you would feel the need to create. You volunteered to help with various flora and fauna on Earth. The last time I saw you - as an angel in Heaven - you had given me a ring of gold. That you made on Earth. It was my first possession. I have worn it ever since.” Aziraphale held up his hand, to show, but his eyes could only fix upon the ring itself, using his thumb to run across it - confirming it was real.

Crowley again saw the hand, the ring, in his memory and before him now. Both times, awashed with love-love-love.

Aziraphale continued, “I looked for you during the rebellion. I heard you had went to Earth to defend the creations. You weren’t in Heaven to be counted for us; so you were counted for being in Lucifer’s brood. They knew we were close, so they assigned me to you in the fight. To ensure your destruction. I was ordered to bind you and ensure you were cast into darkness, covered in piercing rocks to remain until you burned during Armageddon. I... I did find you. You had collapsed - in a desert on Earth. When they counted you against us, they took the divine love from you. It was... horrible.” Aziraphale visibly shivered from the memory but continued.

“Your soul was wounded, yet I could do nothing. You did recognize me. You asked if I was safe, if I had remained ethereal when you were not. Once confirming I was - you asked if I would kill you.” Aziraphale started to cry at the pain of the memory returning and settling within him.

Crowley could feel it to flooding back. He started to remember.

‘Oh. Raphael. Aziraphale. I don’t deserve you.’ Crowley thought as he reached his hands up to swipe tears from Aziraphale’s eyes before leaning to kiss his forehead.

“You didn’t.” Crowley stated.

“I couldn’t. I loved you. I love you still.” Aziraphale reaches his hands up to cradle his beloved’s face.

They pulled themselves close, resting foreheads together, lips a breath away.

Crowley remembered what happened next. Raphael begged him to hide, to go to Hell with the other fallen until it was safe to return to Earth. The fighting near over. Raphael was to report back to Earth after the war, once there were humans to watch over. Azazel could return then. They could meet again.

Crowley remembered. The disparity of losing God’s love and the singing of the choir. He was honest with Raphael. “My angel, I don’t know if I can continue on.” Moving his eyes to catch a viper slithering down the dunes. One of his creations. He had given it his eyes.

“I am a being of love. You were a being of love. It’s our essence. The love that you have lost, cannot compare to that which you may hold for me. But I need to you to believe that the spark that you have created in me is a treasure I hold dear. I worry... If that spark was to... Please. Please try and stay alive.” Raphael’s hand rested squarely on his chest.

He remembered then, a lifetime ago, searching in the the hollow of emptiness now within himself - to find a spark of his own, small and quivering. Focusing on it. Willing it to give him strength and to keep him alive.

Crowley felt the same spark now, as he did then. The only difference, over there 6,000 years together, was that it had swelled to a bonfire.

Crowley here and now, mimicked what he as Azazel did. Taking Aziraphale’s wrist and bringing the hand to his lips, kissing the ring. “I vow to love and cherish you.”

Aziraphale smiling, remembering his turn, leaned in. He was scared then, but committed now. He kissed the now tattooed temple, “I vow to love and cherish you”.

They were both smiling then. Wings entangled, kept them close.

Happy. Contented. Loved. Known.

So close, they both needed closer, joining as the humans do in a kiss. 

They stretched themselves ethereally to merge together. There was blinding safe light before the deepest of darkness.

~*~

Coming back down from the highs of ecstasy was slow - then sudden. 

Consciousness gripped them to find they were still in each other’s arms, only more corporal. Less vertical and more horizontal.

Crowley gave Aziraphale Eskimo kisses before sneaking a lop sided real kiss.

“I don’t know that I can move.” Aziraphale whined.

“I don’t know that I can either angel.” Crowley answered. Sneaking another quick peck.

“Can I still call you Crowley?” Aziraphale asked in a hushed tone.

“You can... if I can still call you Aziraphale, my angel.” Crowley answered smiling.

“Well.” Aziraphale blushed, “Of course. It is my, I suppose it is - my chosen name. At least by now.”

“I could be Razazel?” Crowley said with a serpentine grin.

“Better not.” Aziraphale said before sneaking a kiss of his own.

~*~

It had been a week of napping and cuddling before they had enough energy to get off the floor and onto the sofa.

“I remember a little of what happened after our marriage too.” Aziraphale said plainly, leaning his head on Crowley’s shoulder. As if them being married for more than 6,000 years wasn’t a new revelation.

Crowley tensed, then relaxed. Of course they were married. The bonfire inside him roared and crackled in its burning. Warm. It soothed his cold blood. Of course. 

Closing his eyes sleepily, an interested “Hm?” came out of Crowley. Instead of anything more.

“You prepared yourself for the sulpher pits that brought you into Hell. Seeing that viper - you thought it would do nicely. Thick skin and worse case a full skin shed. Transforming your form, you thought you might be able to survive it.” Aziraphale rattled on.

“I buried you. That way I could say I covered you in darkness and you were below. I uh... sort of, followed orders.” Aziraphale dropped off.

“It worked. Sssort of.” Crowley said. “I must have burned for years trying to get through that boiling sssulfur. I don’t know how long it took for me to heal after. I just know I was in that sssnake form for a long time. I sssort of forgot how to switch back, until I didn’t. After that sulfur baptism, I knew I was forever a demon.” Crowley shoe-gazing realized saying it all out loud, wasn’t as difficult as it had always seemed.

“And you didn’t remember me.” Aziraphale mentioned.

“I... uh. No?” Crowley admitted.

“I remember being despondent back in Heaven for ages. But the show must go on, as it was, so the humans were created and I was called on by God. She called me ‘Aziraphale’ and that was my earliest memory - until yesterday.” Aziraphale went quiet.

“So she took our memories... with the exception that if we learned our names it would return?” Crowley attempted to recap the situation.

“It seems like. I can’t. I don’t understand why it was done. But the plan is ineffable as always.” Aziraphale nodded, happy enough with the result.

“So when is our anniversary?” Crowley said with a smirk. Enjoying Aziraphale’s sputtering as a response. 

**Author's Note:**

> I too was curious on whom Crowley was “before”.
> 
> I started with what ‘type’ of angel; I decided he had to be a Seraphim - “the serpent” and one of the most powerful types of Angels, I mean, he helped create Alpha Centauri. He created a pocket universe when the devil himself was coming... His eyes were perfect for a snake, sure, but snakes have slit eyes to see in darkness - like the darkness of space. A Seraphim’s true form has wing covered eyes...
> 
> In the Raphael listing, one of the thoughts on who Crowley was, I came across Azazel. He was a fallen angel who introduced humans to forbidden knowledge. Who taught men how to make shields and swords from metal and women how to ornament the body. He was the scapegoat. His punishment was carried out by Raphael. Unclear what type of angel Azazel was, cherub/archangel/ect. So. He ‘could’ be a Seraphim. It just ‘fit’ Crowley.
> 
> Then I thought who was Aziraphale. Reading his name, after the Raphael - Azi-RAPHALE. ... OMG. Then this fic came tumbling after...


End file.
